Page:Captain Cook's Journal during His First Voyage Round the World.djvu/32

xxvi hundred and seventy tons, and was known as H.M. Bark Endeavour, there being another vessel, a cutter, of the same name in the Royal Navy. She was brought to the dockyard at Deptford to fit out. Her appearance was, of course, wholly different from that of a vessel built as a man-of-war, and we shall see that this caused trouble at Rio JanieroJaneiro [sic], where the combination of merchant build and officers in uniform in an armed ship, aroused suspicions in the mind of the Portuguese Viceroy.

It is nowhere directly stated whether the Endeavour was sheathed with copper or not; but as Cook in the account of his second voyage expresses himself as adverse to this method of protecting ships' bottoms, and the operation is recorded of heeling and boot-topping, which was cleaning and greasing the part of the ship just below waterline, it may be concluded that her sheathing was wood.

She proved a most suitable vessel. The log states she was a little crank, but an admirable sea-boat. Her rate of sailing was of course, with her build, slow, but her strength and flat bottom stood her in good stead when she made acquaintance with a coral reef.

She mounted ten small carriage guns and twelve swivels.

Mr. Banks, a scientific botanist, afterwards well known as Sir Joseph Banks, and for a long time President of the Royal Society, a gentleman of private means, volunteered to accompany Cook, and took with him a staff of his own, of artists and others.

He also induced Dr. Solander, a Swedish naturalist, afterwards attached to the British Museum, to accompany him.

Mr. Charles Green, one of the assistants at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, was sent as astronomer.

This scientific staff added much to the success of the expedition.

Banks and Solander, both men of observation, were able to collect specimens of natural history, and study the manners and customs of the natives with whom they came in contact, which neither the time at Cook's disposal nor his training enabled him to undertake; and though the Journal of the former has never yet been published, and cannot at the present time be traced, many interesting remarks were extracted by Dr. Hawkesworth from it and went far to make his account of the voyage complete.

Mr. Green also demands special notice.

One great question of the day amongst seamen and geographers was the discovering of some ready and sure method of ascertaining the longitude. Half the value of the explorations made up to this time had been lost from this want. The recognised means of finding longitude was by the observation of lunars; that is,